


First Blood

by folkhorrorwolfstar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Blood, Death, Disassociation, Gen, Gore, Heavy Angst, Memory Charms, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Aftermath, Rape happens but is not described, Sexual Violence, Swearing, Trauma, Violence, but that's the least of your problems, mainly I'm very sorry I've written this, major shade thrown at Dumbledore, what happened with the werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 05:58:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15768006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folkhorrorwolfstar/pseuds/folkhorrorwolfstar
Summary: Join any clubs recently Lupin? Oh yes, my friendly local gang of lunar-reactive apex predators intent on devouring human flesh… Really gets me out of the house, meeting new people, you know?What happened when Remus Lupin tried to make contact with the werewolves in the first war. All the trigger warnings.





	First Blood

**Author's Note:**

> The subject matter of this is a very difficult one, and I hesitated to publish it. I believe whole-heartedly that rape should never be used solely as a narrative device or means of shocking a reader in a voyeuristic or sensational manner. I do believe that trauma should be written and discussed and shared, because that is how we deal with trauma and gain empathy. And I believe the more people who have experienced trauma first hand and write about it in a sympathetic way, the better. In short, I believe those who have suffered terrible things should be able voice their experiences without fear of those experience being sexualised or sensationalised, as is often unfortunately the case. This is a piece rooted in the catharsis of talking about trauma, and also in the inherent desire for healing. I think one of the most important things that fiction does is extend a hand to the reader and say, I'm here, I know it can be difficult, I get it, I understand. That is what this piece is trying to achieve: I'm here, I know it can be difficult, I get it, I understand.

It is the worst possible thing Remus Lupin could have been asked to do. 

(Throw everything you know about childhood trauma out of the window, he thinks, and just stroll into the monster’s lair like you want nothing more than to be there…)

Well, it hadn’t been quite that simple, of course, he’d had to get friendly with a few fringe members before he was introduced to the real pack… There were a few groups, each of about ten members, meeting every month to revel in their own wildness – sooner or later though, they all answered to the same man, and so Remus started at the bottom, in his local, as it were. 

(Join any clubs recently Lupin? Oh yes, my friendly local gang of lunar-reactive apex predators intent on devouring human flesh… Really gets me out of the house, meeting new people, you know?)

But they were begging for members, you could tell, all caught up in the camaraderie of it: werewolves, accepting themselves, running free, and fuck the whole lot of wizarding society for turning up their noses – we’ll show them. He smiles along with the rest of them, nods his head, and every so often gets in a lukewarm, ‘But this dark lord bloke isn’t much better, you’ve got to admit…’

Some of them listen to him: the older ones, the ones who are tired in their very bones, who’ve had to fight for so much longer – not that many survive much older than thirty or so…

Not all of them are extremists, most of them just love running with a pack, and he’s got to admit… Running with the pack is good, he’s got his own, and he knows how good it is to run free, to give in to the wolf. You remember more, when you’re not resisting it; some say you even keep more control, when you let the wolf in. It’s more exhilarating with others like him, of course: a real wolf pack. He loathes that, it makes him sick that a little part of him enjoys it… Not that they’ve done anything too bad you understand, only run free (for now at least). Despite the delicious adrenaline of it, the wolf misses his mate, and his friends: the wolf does not like that he is not alpha. 

The others talk of darker things… Of basements rigged up with real prey on full moon nights… Of the taste of blood… Of a group of young men (about his age) all turned young – way too young (he winces at that, he understands) – and they’re all more wolf than man now. 

They whisper of Greyback. Fenrir breaking the chains at Ragnarok – the werewolves heralding the end of the world… They mumble out their histories, their ancient rites: one wolf will swallow the sun; one wolf will swallow the moon. Rome, Peter Stubbe, Gille de Rais, Ansbach. Take the pelt of a wolf, drink rain from a werewolf’s footstep, howl at the moon until she answers, until you are hoarse. Cut off the paw of a wolf and find your wife at home without her hand... Kill her. 

 

Remus runs with the pack for three months before he is trusted enough for the inner sanctum, the core pack… He goes along to some seedy pub in the middle of fucking nowhere… The bloke he’s come with is practically trembling with excitement, ‘We’ll meet him… We’ll meet Greyback. He says he’s got a plan. Gonna put wolves back at the top of the food chain.’

Remus grins, but it’s hollow, in his mind he is screaming – it has been nothing but white noise in his head for days.

When he walks into the pub he is hit by a wave of nausea, and he sees the man who tore his whole family’s lives apart, and he has to stand there and drink his pint and nod along with the rest of them. Greyback knows he is there; almost imperceptibly he turns to Remus when he enters, sniffs the air and smiles to himself gloatingly from the other side of the room, but says nothing.

Remus wants to be sick, his head spins – it is the night before the full moon, and everyone is buoying themselves up to run tomorrow night, getting themselves in a frenzy – it is as if the only human part of them left is their bodies. They’re young most of them, full of fight and frothing at the mouth with righteous rage: Remus realises with a horrible feeling they must all be about his age, turned at around the same time – there’s no one here new to the wolf, and everyone else has accepted that bloody sacrament right into their hearts (they’ve never known anything different). Greyback raised them, he turned them and made them into this slavering, snarling pack who do his bidding – nothing will convince him there was nothing sexual in it for the man: all those innocents tainted, all that power glutted on…

The muggle woman behind the bar looks a little nervous of them, all these rowdy young men. Remus pities her.

Greyback holds court, he speaks of unspeakable things: Remus does not listen because his head is spinning. He is terrified, but he nods along with the hate the other man spews.

They’d rip him to pieces if they knew. Maybe it’s worth it, he thinks, but then he thinks about Sirius and the others, and how they’d come after them, and then he thinks about a slobbering, whining dog who likes his ears scratched just so, being hunted down by wolves, or a stag being rent limb from limb…

 

Later that night Greyback approaches him, places a hand on his shoulder and sneers, ‘I always knew you’d come and find me… Had enough of your father’s bigotry?’

He doesn’t know how he replies, ‘Something like that.’

‘Some of my finest work, you were…’ the other man growls. ‘Good to welcome you back into the fold…’

Remus smiles weakly, and takes another swig of his pint, all his concentration going in to not shaking as he raises the glass to his lips.

‘Not very talkative, are you? Probably for the best… If your dear old dad hadn’t been so loose with his tongue, you wouldn’t be here today now would you? Good to know Lupins learn their lessons.’

Remus stares into his drink. 

‘So what brings you to my little… gathering then?’

‘Wanted to see what all the fuss was about…’ He finishes his pint and makes to leave, but Greyback pushes him back against the bar. The others seem to hush suddenly and watch; they stare at him with eyes that yearn for blood – one or two lick their lips.

The man laughs, it is a horrible sound. Remus’s heart almost fails him.

‘I heard differently,’ says Greyback.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah… I heard you were going round saying the dark lord was no good – that the pack should give its loyalties elsewhere…’

Remus tries desperately not to make eye contact with any of them, ‘I only mean, you know, that why should we be so sure he won’t turn on us too?’

‘Even the dark lord is scared of some things Remus,’ chuckles Greyback. ‘Even he knows the wolf can’t be tamed… Not by fear, or magic, or Hogwarts headmasters.’ There is a ripple of laughter at that. He lowers his voice so only Remus can hear, placing a hand roughly on the young man’s throat, ‘Not even by getting it’s cock sucked by snobby, blood traitor queers.’

Remus’s heart is now lodged somewhere in his oesophagus. Bile rises. Greyback is so close to him, he can smell the wolf on him – he’s more animal than man now, fully committed to the wild within him. He periodically strokes Remus’s face.

He addresses the group once more, pushing Remus aside, ‘Dumbledore’s pet werewolf, come to talk to us about ethics – aren’t we honoured boys?’

They all cheer and crow mockingly, raising their glasses.

He grabs him again, ‘Now I could let them tear you apart Remus… I could… I almost want it… But it would be such a shame, such a waste… So I’m going to give you a chance, a little wager if you will… Tell me how kind I am Remus.’

‘Fuck you,’ he croaks.

Greyback laughs, ‘That’s more like it.’

The others cheer.

‘You ruined my fucking life,’ he doesn’t care if they rip him apart – he’ll rip them to pieces first. He squares himself up.

Greyback laughs uproariously, ‘Ruined it? Ruined! I made you what you are Remus. I made you strong. I gave you rage. I gave you power. I let you be an alpha!’ he cries, mad with triumph. ‘So, your pack might be a little unconventional… You stink of them by the way; you stink of your dog bitch. But-’

Remus lashes out, striking Greyback in the jaw before he can finish, but the larger man isn’t rattled.

‘Yes Remus! Fight! Give in!’ Do what you were made to do.

He clenches his fist, holding himself back from lashing out again, baring his teeth. He’s not the wolf, he’s not a killer. He’s a good man, he swears it. But the preternatural urge is there. He wants to fight, to taste blood: he wants to win, not because of the war or the evils this man has committed, but because Remus should be alpha. He is alpha. The young should displace the old. 

And Greyback knows he feels that. 

The others watch in bloodthirsty expectation: tonight will be an exciting taste of what tomorrow’s moon will bring. The barmaid notices to her horror that all of their eyes are the same – not quite human, something else – and then she’s really afraid. Everything is still.

He turns back to the bar and collapses into the stool where he had been sitting; he reckons he’ll die tonight. He rubs his hands over his face and sighs to himself, calculating his plan. It is as if everyone else in the room has held their breath. He looks up at the girl behind the bar, trembling and trying to make herself as small as possible. ‘Get out,’ he mouths soundlessly. ‘Run.’

And then, screaming, he slams his pint glass into Fenrir Greyback’s face.

Everything begins at once: Greyback barrels into him – his larger frame pinning Remus to the bar, the bloke he’d come with punches him in the face, but is picked up and thrown bodily across the room by someone else – everyone has immediately devolved into violence, they break glasses on one another’s flesh, tear at limbs, claw at eyes, the near-moon-frenzy possessing them, he hears a door slam as the barmaid escapes, but sickens as two of Greyback’s cronies run after her. He pummels the solid form of Greyback with his fists but the older man grabs him by the hair and smashes his face into his knee – Remus tastes blood then, he can’t breathe through his nose – broken: Merlin why is he here? He’s outnumbered and they will kill him, he knows it. He’s thrown on the floor and kicked repeatedly in the ribs – multiple boots connecting with flesh. Hands reach down – claw-fingered – and mark him, tear at his hair. At some point during this the landlord of the pub comes downstairs and is faced with anarchy – he tries to back away, but is grabbed and held by two of the young ones.

‘Enough!’ 

They all stop, panting like dogs, blood on their lips: hell hounds. 

‘Let us kill him father,’ says one at the back. ‘Let us taste his blood.’

Greyback smiles, ‘I admire your enthusiasm… But I think we’ll leave this one until tomorrow… Tonight however we have other entertainment…’ He gestures at the landlord. ‘Did anyone find the girl?’

‘Got her,’ calls one young man, sneering, him and his companion dragging a now weeping barmaid back into the pub. There is a ripple of laughter and excitement.

‘No,’ croaks Remus. ‘Leave them alone.’ He tries to get up but everything is on fire with pain and there’s a boot on his back, pinning him to the ground. 

He hears screams and he’s almost sick. 

‘Dumbledore’s pet,’ he hears one of the pack sneer and he’s knocked out by a boot to the head. 

 

Remus wakes much later – early morning, just before dawn – he’s been tied up behind the bar, one arm lashed to a pipe. Next to him the body of the landlord has been discarded, partially eviscerated. There’s blood everywhere. He wants to be sick, but finds he cannot. Everything hurts. He struggles to standing, numb to the ache in his ribs. At first he thinks he is alone, but realises – he’s never been more terrified in his life – that the pub is full of them all, a tangled mass of sleeping bodies, snoring and sleep-muttering with the contentment of a night of killing. 

As quietly as he can, he checks his wand is still intact, secured as it is by his inner thigh – he knows the more radical groups look down on educated magic users, preferring the wild, feral magic they inhabit with the moon. It is fine, he wonders whether he could try and apparate, but he’s sure he’d splinch… He avoids looking at the mass of guts that was once a muggle landlord at his feet and slowly, he edges towards the sink, thankfully close enough to get some water – he chugs it greedily, hoping it will help with his headache. He prods his nose and winces, considers taking a very large swig of the nearest spirit, but decides against it, he’ll need his wits about him.

Grabbing a knife – once used to slice lime for gin and tonics – he saws through the rope that binds him, and makes his way (so quietly, he’s not even breathing) towards the back door. He’s almost there when he feels hot breath on his neck, smells Greyback’s foetid stink. 

‘Going somewhere?’ growls the older man, there is a laugh in his voice. He puts his hand in the small of Remus’s back and – to his surprise – guides him out the door. ‘Let’s have a little chat, shall we? Man to man.’

‘I thought you were a wolf,’ says Remus impassively. The dawn is creeping in – it’s starting to wink at them over the hill, leaving them still in the gloom of night, birds are not yet waking, but they will. 

Greyback directs him over to some worn looking wooden picnic tables and they sit across from one another. In the grey half-light Greyback looks ancient – not frail or old, but somehow eons in age, as if carved from granite. He is reminded of stories of trolls from childhood, who would turn into stone upon sunrise.

‘Wolf to wolf then…’ he chuckles. ‘Alpha to alpha…’

As the sun begins to trickle over the hill, he is almost excited, waiting to see the man before him turn into rock and rubble. But he knows he won’t. Fenrir Greyback is real, and he is here, and he wants to kill Remus. 

‘I don’t want to kill you boy,’ says Greyback, and laughs at the shock on Remus’s face. ‘I wasn’t lying when I said you were my greatest achievement. All those boys in there, they’re nothing – lackeys, running with the pack because they know it protects them… None of them ever rebel. It gets boring, senseless violence is only interesting for a while.’

‘You’re bored?’ Remus raises an eyebrow.

Greyback smiles, ‘That’s why I’ve thrown in our oar with Voldemort. He’s making things… interesting.’

Remus snorts, ‘If you find genocide interesting.’

‘Would it really surprise you if I did?’

Remus stares at his hands, shakes his head. He won’t look him in the eye.

‘Exactly,’ says Greyback. They sit in silence for a moment. ‘You know I actually quite liked your father.’

Remus looks up, confused. 

‘He wasn’t a coward – said what he meant. I respect that, but… He needed to be taken down a peg or two, you know? He needed to know who was in charge…’

Remus sighed. 

‘I suspect you’re a coward really, deep down, Remus… Not in the traditional sense: oh you’ll run straight into a fight, protect the innocent, lay down your life, all that shit… But will you have the courage to live life like a normal person, after all you’ve seen, after all you’ve done, after the wizards are done with their wars? Would you even know how?’

‘If you’re quite done with psychoanalysing me, I think I’d like to go,’ he makes to stand up. 

Greyback grabs his wrist, leaving marks with his sharp, filth-ingrained nails, ‘Can’t let you do that now can I?’

‘You could,’ says Remus darkly. ‘If you knew what was good for you.’

The man smiles, all fang, ‘Really? Is that a challenge?’

‘It’s not anything,’ he grumbles. ‘Let me go.’

‘But I so want to fight you Remus… Man to man, wolf to wolf, alpha to alpha…’

‘Why? You’ve got plenty of others…’

‘Every single man in that room would let me stamp on his throat without a second thought… They love me. I gave them a gift, I made them wild… Not one of them will ever challenge me.’

‘So I’m purely here for your amusement, is that it? Bored with all your old toys…’ Remus looks at him darkly, he’s so fucking jaded.

‘You could say that… You see, I know you’ll never be one of us, got too many of your own ideas, or someone else’s. You can’t run with this pack. You’re a threat to me Remus, first in years, you should be honoured…’

‘Well excuse me if I’m not as flattered as you’d like. What do you want Greyback?’

‘Fight me, for alpha, for control of the pack…’

‘What?’

Greyback shrugs, ‘It’s the only law the wolf will listen to – you win, they’re yours, and you can do what you want with them: take them all back to your precious Dumbledore, see how all those blood traitors take to that, eh? They won’t listen to your reason. But they’d follow you if you fought me and won, because that’s all they respect. Power. Violence. Alpha.’

Stop staying alpha you fucking sociopath, he thinks. ‘And if you win?’ 

Greyback laughs darkly, ‘You’re mine. Until I get bored, and I will, pretty quickly. It’ll be quite a disappointment if you don’t kill me Remus… And then well, I’ll let them rip you to shreds.’

Remus swallows, ‘I see.’

‘It’s been a while since they’ve hunted their own… Be good for morale…’

‘Better than killing innocent muggles?’ he hisses.

‘I’d say it was unfortunate, but, by gods she tasted good…’

Remus vomits, but he agrees to fight – he doesn’t feel like he has a choice. What if he wins?

The Sun is finally over the hill, but it does not warm him. 

 

Moonrise is at quarter to nine (he checks obsessively – Sirius buys him an almanac each year, it gives him some semblance of control, or understanding). It is now six o clock, dampening to evening. The pack has avoided him, most of them have slept, they don’t talk to him, he is anathema to them. He’d taken a walk down the road earlier, healed his wounds (licked them, he supposes), and hid his wand again, he’s done some thinking, prepared himself. He’s too sick with worry to eat, and the smell of blood is everywhere (every sense if heightened with the closeness of the full). He considers casting a Patronus, telling Sirius he loves him, telling him he’s sorry, but he knows that will only make more trouble. Tomorrow morning he will either be leader of a pack of half-crazed teenagers, or he will be a really gruesome news item. He dreads anyone trying to approach the pub, but it’s thankfully a grey, damp day – not the sort of day for a walk, that might bring ramblers out to the remote establishment. 

At half past six he is dragged to the car park, where the pack has assembled, barely containing their ecstasy. There will be blood spilt tonight. They chant and howl and jeer, as if all a different limb of the same, horrible wholeness, the same terrible body. There are more of them than last night, he’s certain, forty maybe… Merlin, that many?

Remus is reminded of childhood, schoolyard scraps, fight fight fight, Sirius and Snape throwing at punches at each other before they rightly knew how to throw hexes; James getting into a scuffle with a fifth year who called Lily a mudblood; the one time some bigger kids picked on Peter (they regretted it, the marauders had hexed their eyebrows off so they’d grow back luminous green)… But this is not a schoolyard scrap, this is not stupid fight, this is a blood sport, this is a fucking show. He doesn’t want to think about Hogwarts, he doesn’t want to think about what it will do to them all to find out he’s dead. First marauder to go… He guesses it’ll be no great shock, he was always so sickly…

‘No magic, wizard boy,’ says Greyback – he stands in the centre of the space, cocky and sure of himself. 

He holds his hands up, holding nothing, ‘Wouldn’t dream of it old man. Didn’t even bring a wand.’

They want a show, he’ll give them a fucking show. 

Greyback laughs, ‘First blood.’

Remus nods, he doesn’t want to bleed too much – not the way the hounds are baying for it; and werewolf skin is thicker, it takes so much more to kill, to maim… It’s almost as Greyback says, a gift… and then it’s not. 

He throws the first punch – he wishes he hadn’t, but fuck he’s desperate at this point – and hits Greyback in the chest, the other man is surprised, but shakes it off quickly, kneeing Remus in the stomach. He dives into the bigger man, trying to push him to the ground, what was that muggle thing Lily taught all the girls in sixth year? A suplex? He doesn’t know. He panics then (for crying out loud Lupin, he thinks, how are you over-thinking now?) because he realises he’s not really a fighter, sure he’s strong, uncannily so, but he’s got no actual technical skill. Either way it doesn’t work, so instead he draws back and stares at Greyback instead. The group is cheering wildly, indiscriminately. Blood! Blood! Blood!

‘You can do better than that Remus…’ shouts his opponent.

He lunges at Greyback again, but is thrown off. 

‘You’re holding back,’ he says in a sing song voice. 

Of course he’s never been a fighter, he’s had the wolf for that… 

Oh. 

All of a sudden then he realises what this is – Greyback doesn’t give a shit who lives or dies, he just wants Remus to give in to the wolf, to the wild. He just wants the satisfaction of knowing he killed all that was peaceful, all that was good left in the only victim who wouldn’t play along at being a pack. It’s all about power – it’s always about power.

He knows he has to give into it – this near to moonrise the wolf is so close to the surface it takes all his willpower to suppress it: he’s only given into it once before, during sex to his shame. Sirius always tried to persuade him to do it again, but all he could remember was the horrible all-encompassing need: the need to conquer, the need to dominate, the need to sink teeth into flesh.

He supposes he could use that need now, it is all that is left. 

Everything goes red. The wolf is in control, he’d barely even had to think about it: he bars his teeth in a low, guttural snarl. He can smell them all, the great mass of blood and sweat and want-want-want need-need-need kill-kill-kill blood-blood-blood surging from them all, boiling over inside himself. One gets too close and he snaps at them, and like a frightened pup the other backs off, they all do, suddenly aware of his power. Greyback hadn’t been lying. Alpha to alpha…

He lunges at him, the look in the other man’s eyes is transcendent, ‘It’s good isn’t it Remus? Letting the wolf in…’

‘Fuck you,’ he spits, and lunges at him again, gaining purchase on the other man’s arm he kicks his kidney and yanks until there’s the sickening pop of a shoulder leaving its socket. Greyback cries out, but stifles it. The pack look nervous now, suddenly unsure, their great, strong leader is losing. Greyback falls, and Remus is on him, pummelling him with his fists, all the pent up rage of years, all the hatred he has ever felt.

But the other man has caught his arm and – staring into his eyes – slowly he bites down into Remus’s wrist. 

First blood.

Remus stares down at him in horrid realisation; he barely feels the pain of it. It is as if he is watching it from outside of his body – the horror and surprise on his own face, the near sensual enjoyment on Greyback’s, the panting, frenetic faces of the pack. 

Greyback’s tongue licks out at the wound, lapping at the blood as it flows hotly, spilling forth. Remus pushes back in horror, scrabbling away. He knows he cannot escape. The pack are drawing in. Greyback stares at him all wolf, the laughing has gone, he looms… 

(You fucking lost, Lupin.)

Fuck, fuck, oh fuck, is all he thinks. 

The worst happens.

 

After Greyback discards him – he can still feel that terrible weight, he can still smell that stink of blood and hate and desire – he comes crashing back into his body, the pain becomes real, the awareness of what has just happened becomes sharp in his brain, as if it is made of knives: the memory is huge and it is cannibalising all the happiness he has ever had. He feels hollow, and also like his blood is made of mercury, or vitriol, or some other alchemical thing… He wants to collapse, to just sink into the boggy ground and suffocate in soil, preserved forever in peat and in his own pain. 

But he runs. 

Greyback sneered when it was over, ‘I’ll give you a head start, aren’t I kind Remus? Mile south there’s a village – maybe someone will help you before moon… But the old girl’s rising fast, tick tock Remus.’

Remus doesn’t even spit out a curse, ‘What’s North?’

‘Nothing but moor and woodland,’ there’s a terrible glint in his eye. ‘Perfect hunting ground.’

He runs, taking any moments of grace that he can steal back, refusing to die at the hands of that bastard: refusing to let him take his life as well. He makes a mental note of the nearest villages when he passes a street sign, making a vague – frankly ridiculous – promise to check no one is hurt tomorrow. Making sure Greyback told the truth, and that North is only wastes (it is).

 

Eight o clock, almost moonrise. He’s running North. He would have apparated as soon as he got out of the car park, but he knows what they’ll do if they haven’t got him to hunt… Forty fucking hyped up werewolves and one small village? It’d be a massacre; it’d be a fucking hammer horror. So he runs across the moor, he cannot quite believe that his feet are carrying him. His heart beats in his chest like a drum. He lets himself stop and bleed every so often, giving them some of his scent to follow.

He comes to the wood, dark and close and welcoming – were the wolf not intent on rearing his head tonight he would have hid in that wood no problem, but the wolf’s pride is bruised… The wolf would try and fight… And that would not do. They (he and the wolf) lost the wager, even if he killed the alpha; the pack would not permit him to live. 

He understands animal things now better than he did before: the honour of beasts. 

(I lost. How did I lose?

Better not dwell on that now…)

He plunges into the wood, and begins the most painstaking part of his plan, smearing blood and sweat periodically on the trees, he manages to make a rough circle of the wood in the hopes it might keep them there. Not long now, he can hear them in the distance – he can smell them, they’re far back on the moor, but they’ve locked in on him, they know he will go to the wood… 

In a final act of rage he decides to piss on a tree in the middle of the circle, overwhelming them with his scent, an act of utter disrespect and hate. Remus Lupin may not have mastered brutality, but by Merlin he knows how to piss off figures of authority. He’s a marauder for crying out loud.

He apparates though splinching is almost a given. 

 

It is a mark on the day he has had that the Shrieking Shack feels safe, and homely; he considers sending that Patronus to Sirius, but he’s afraid what the wolf might do out of a need to be in control again. Eight thirty five. Ten minutes. He doesn’t know if he can think of anything happy enough to cast it right now. He takes off his clothes (he is going to burn them) and puts his wand somewhere safe. He lies down on the bed and cries and cries, screaming impotently at the bare walls. 

He is still screaming when Sirius arrives and throws his arms around him, ‘Merlin Moony what is going on?’

‘Why are you here?’ he croaks.

Sirius looks at him guiltily, ‘I cast a charm on the shack to tell me whenever you apparated here…’

‘What?’

‘I never wanted you transform alone you bloody idiot.’

Remus’s body jars, ‘Talking of…’

He feels the wolf starting to take over again. 

‘Be careful Pads,’ he whispers. ‘Please. He’s dangerous tonight.’

Sirius becomes a dog, loyal and good, looking at him with huge, wonderful eyes. 

As he transforms he swears the wolf apologises, I failed us, it says, I’m sorry, or something like it.

 

The wolf is angry. The wolf is in pain. It looms over the dog, growling. It wants to hurt something. It wants to dominate. To bite. 

The dog roles over, it whines, bares its belly, submissive and unassuming, shall we play? (Let’s play! Let’s wrestle! Let’s run!)

The wolf cocks it head and growls, then goes back to the soft place where it smells of human, and licks its wounds. The dog curls up nearby, resting his head on the wolf, letting out a small whine, it licks its nose at the wolf experimentally (You smell wrong!), and the wolf snaps a little, impatient (wait…) but affectionate.

The wolf howls low. (Everything hurts. Protect the boy. You remember you are mine don’t you?)

The dog bares his throat. (I am yours!).

 

Sirius is holding him when he wakes, stroking his hair. His whole body is on fire with pain. Madame Pomfrey is there, he feels about twelve again. The look of concern on her face breaks his heart. She is a kind, good woman.

‘Mr Black here took it upon himself to come up to the castle this morning and ask me to come and help,’ she says in her thick Dublin accent. ‘And thank Merlin he did – look at you, what happened Remus?’

‘I’d like to know that myself…’ says Sirius.

‘Water, and sleep,’ he murmurs. ‘Then I’ll talk.’

‘I haven’t seen him this bad in years,’ says Poppy as he falls back into a doze. 

 

The hospital wing, familiar, clinical, comfortable, he hasn’t known pillows this soft in years, maybe he’ll pout until Sirius buys them better pillows, he muses... And then he remembers everything, and he screams, a low, howling wail: ghastly, like a wounded animal. 

‘Moony, Moony I’m here, it’s okay Moony, you’re safe,’ Sirius is grasping his hand, trying to stop him as he tears at his own skin with nails still wolf-sharp. ‘Moony please…’

His wailing intensifies. 

‘Remus Lupin,’ snaps Poppy, though you can tell she’s afraid, not angry. ‘I do not know what has happened to you, and I know it is serious. But you will be quiet on my ward, do you hear? I have called for the headmaster; he will be down in a minute.’

He stops, stunned into silence, nodding at Poppy sheepishly, ‘I’m sorry Poppy.’

‘Don’t you dare be sorry Remus,’ she says, and he can hear tears in her voice, and he knows she’s seeing this war for what it is for the first time. 

Sirius squeezes his hand gently and he looks at him: he’s never seen Sirius so afraid.

‘Did I hurt you?’ he rasps. 

‘What?’ Sirius nearly bursts into tears. ‘What the fuck? No! I’ve never known the wolf so… subdued. You slept mostly…’

‘Oh.’

‘What happened Remus?’

‘Mission,’ he croaks. ‘Went wrong… Greyback.’

Sirius stiffens, ‘He made you go after Greyback? I knew you had to infiltrate the werewolves, but he made you go after fucking Greyback?’

‘Albus,’ says Poppy sharply. 

They all look up, Sirius stares at Dumbledore with palpable venom. 

‘Will you join me in my office?’ she says.

‘Of course Poppy,’ comes the reply, and Dumbledore inclines his head towards the two young men suddenly taking up space in the hospital wing. 

‘Albus Dumbledore,’ she raises her voice. ‘I don’t know what you think you are doing, but it needs to stop this instant! Not only was that young man in need of urgent medical care, it is likely whatever poisonous business you have had him be part of has had a terrible effect on his mind! He has clearly been beaten to within an inch of his life – and probably worse – and don’t think I don’t know you’ve asked him to keep an eye on the others like him. He might be stronger than most, but no child under my care will ever be forced to relive the traumas that plagued them throughout childhood, do I make myself clear?’

Remus tries to sink into the bed in both shame and a desperate need to forget. I’m not a child, he thinks guiltily.

‘Perfectly Poppy, I will admit some poor judgement on my part.’

Sirius snorts in disgust. 

‘Poor judgement? Poor judgement Albus? It’s a miracle he’s alive.’

Moments later they appear once more, and Albus Dumbledore stands at the end of his bed. It is apparently Sirius’s turn to kick off, because he stands (without ever quite letting go of Remus’s fingertips) and rails at the headmaster in his best and most polished pureblood drawl, ‘What in the name of Merlin’s left nipple were you possibly hoping to achieve by getting involved with Fenrir fucking Greyback?’

Poppy does not chide him for swearing, and Remus sees her smile very slightly.

‘I believed that Mr Lupin was up to the task,’ says Dumbledore. ‘Clearly I misjudged the situation.’

‘Don’t say that,’ he stammers. ‘Don’t you bloody underestimate me. I beat him. I would’ve beat him. I was stronger. I was stronger.’

They look at him in shock; Madame Pomfrey turns to Dumbledore with a look of disdain. Sirius smiles at him weakly, ‘You’re the strongest man I know Moony.’

Dumbledore stares at him, unsure of how to tread – he knows he has let Remus down, but he does not quite know what to say, ‘If you do not want to discuss events of the last few days, I entirely understand Remus… I will however, have to gauge some idea of what has happened. I am sorry to say that the movements of the werewolves are highly important to the Order.’

Remus laughs darkly, ‘You want to look at what they did? You want to look in my head? You want to pour it into your bloody pensieve?’

‘If that would be easier for you,’ says the old man kindly. ‘Though, I have often found that discussing that which is disturbing to one can numb the pain.’

‘Take it,’ he growls. ‘Take it all. Take it out. I don’t want it. I don’t fucking want it.’

‘It will not remove the memory Remus, or its effects, it will perhaps only dull it…’

‘Then fucking obliviate me!’

Sirius stares at him. 

‘Take it out! Take it out! Take it out!’ he starts to shout once more. 

‘Albus, I think it is wise that you leave for the moment, you are disturbing my patient,’ Poppy stares him down. 

‘Of course, please keep me informed as to how Mr Lupin is progressing – and if I may, Remus, I apologise, truly, I never meant to put you into harm’s way.’

Sirius tuts, ‘And yet you did.’

Dumbledore turns to him for the first time, ‘You have always been one to run towards trouble Mr Black; it would be a surprise to think you had no stock in the current war…’

‘We all have stock in this war, sir,’ he says, tossing his jet-coloured mane haughtily. ‘That doesn’t mean we send our friends into danger unprepared and without aid. Someone should have been with him.’

‘A decision I regret.’

‘A decision you never should have had the power to make.’

Remus thinks perhaps he should try and make things better, but stares at the ceiling impassively instead.

Dumbledore departs, and Poppy busies herself in the preparation of some potion to help the pain, and acquiring Remus some food – though if he’s honest his stomach turns at the thought of anything but water. 

When she leaves the room, Sirius turns to him, ‘Shift over love.’ He clambers in next to Remus, wrapping his arms around him and kissing his brow. 

‘I want you to think about it love,’ he murmurs. 

‘I don’t want to…’ Remus mumbles, feeling a terrible chill in his bones.

‘Just this once,’ he says. ‘And then I’ll make it go away…’

‘Okay,’ he whispers, and he lets the thought flood in, he feels the weight of it, smells the tarmac and the blood and the filth, feels all the pain and disgrace curdling in his chest. 

‘Is it there? At the forefront of your mind?’

He sobs. Sirius is holding him, so tightly. 

‘Obliviate,’ Sirius murmurs in his ear, and suddenly it is gone. Something is gone. He is in pain, and he’s afraid still, but he’s… alive, and he’s safe, and the man he loves is holding him close, and he escaped from Fenrir Greyback for fuck’s sake! It turns into an adventure, almost – that time he escaped the worst… 

He knows, deep down he knows what happened, but all detail of it is gone, all remembrance is null: he could not tell you anymore than Fenrir Greyback drew blood, and then suddenly he was running across the cold, grey moor.

He tells Dumbledore what he wants to hear. He tells James and Peter of his daring escape. He warns others that Greyback is ruthless, that his boys are real fucked up…

He looks up the villages, obsessively follows the news – muggle and wizarding – for weeks after, to hear if anyone was hurt. No one, not any muggles anyway – other than the landlord and his girlfriend, that poor barmaid, whose deaths are treated as the horrific tragedy they were. No one is ever charged.

He looks back (though never very often) and knows something is missing (Sirius is so much more protective after it) and he’s grateful that it’s gone.


End file.
